EXCLUSIVE: Northern senators move against Akpabio over alleged N4trn budget paddingClimate change, extreme weather, conflict exacerbate global food crisisIWD 2024: Investing in women and fostering inclusion, By Weng DungEXCLUSIVE: Northern senators move against Akpabio over alleged N4trn budget paddingClimate change, extreme weather, conflict exacerbate global food crisisIWD 2024: Investing in women and fostering inclusion, By Weng DungThe Nigerian National Assembly, Abuja.
A review of the document obtained by this newspaper as well as a review of the proposed 2024 budget and the one eventually passed by the lawmakers, indicate that there is substantial merit in Mr Ningi’s claim. PREMIUM TIMES reported the meeting between Mr Ningi, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and some principal officers of the Senate.During the meeting, Mr Ningi, who at the time was the leader of the Northern Senators’ Forum, alleged that about N3.7 trillion worth of projects were smuggled into the budget.
This line item has a very vague description with an equally vague location. “Selected rural cooperators settlement” was the only description for the location of the project. In total, 14 projects worth N2.4 billion were injected into the institution’s budget. These 14 projects were not in the proposed budget by the president.
For instance, N297.6 million was repeated four times in the agency’s budget for projects without specific locations. These projects were not in the original budget submitted by the president. They were included by the lawmakers. Over the years, the phrase “budget padding” has been used to connote the “smuggling of projects” into the budget by lawmakers.
However, 10 per cent of the funds of the respective chambers are set aside for the principal officers of both chambers. The sharing formula shows that the principal officers of the Senate and the House get N4 billion and N6 billion respectively. Despite the ZIP provision, the lawmakers still smuggle projects worth hundreds of billions into the budget. Budget padding has become an annual ritual in the National Assembly during the passage of the document.
Speaker Abbas Tajudeen confirmed this during the campaign for the speakership. While trying to convince his colleagues to support him, he said members of the 9th Assembly got an additional N100 million worth of projects in the budget for their constituencies.